


Where The Spirit Takes You

by Fortunato



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ghosts, M/M, Talk of Suicide, love after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 18:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fortunato/pseuds/Fortunato
Summary: Gideon has a ghost! It keeps cleaning his apartment instead of making the walls bleed.





	Where The Spirit Takes You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



> TAG: Kindhearted Man/Male Ghost Haunting His New Home
> 
> I hope you enjoy your fic!
> 
> And thanks to my beta, Vali.

* * *

"I keep finding mugs in the sink," said Gideon. There it was, his proof.

"Are they your mugs?" asked Clarine. She nibbled a French fry. "Because mugs in your sink is kind of working as intended, buddy."

"That's the thing! I'm filthy. At my old place you could do archaeological studies on my mugs. But since I moved to this new apartment, the mugs are always in the sink, ready to be scrubbed clean. And, you won't believe this, but the toothpaste cap is always screwed back on."

"Hmm. Yeah, you have a burglar who's horrified at how you live," said Clarine.

"No, I have…" Gideon paused for effect. "A ghost."

"So what, you want me to help you find an exorcist?" asked Clarine. She finished her fries and moved on to Gideon's.

Gideon shook his head hard. "Of course not! This is the ghost's home. But I want to find out more about it. So I was hoping you could help me by letting me borrow some of your film equipment from work."

Clarine considered this, savouring a particularly salty fry.

"Well. I've stopped counting how many favours I owe you, so yeah. Yeah, I'll bring it over and show you how to set up. And if it's a burglar, I'll hold your hand while you call the cops."

Gideon pushed over the rest of his fries to Clarine in gratitude. "Once we make contact, I can thank it for keeping things in order."

* * *

* * *

Clarine looked at the picture in Gideon's hands.

"I'd be upset too," she said. "That thing gives me the willies."

"That's not it," said Gideon, "I just feel so sorry for it! It doesn't even have a face anymore! I need to find out how you make a ghost stronger."

"Okay, that's how we get bleeding walls."

"It's not bad. I'm sure it's not," said Gideon. "I'm going to see what I can do for it. The idea of it just… fading away is so sad. I need to find out who it was and what it needs." 

"How old's that building you moved into again?" said Clarine, tracing a finger down the figure in the photograph.

"It's refurbished from a way older one," said Gideon. "I'm gonna be spending a _lot_ of time with the microfiche."

"You know, I think you needed a hobby while your job was in the off-season," said Clarine. "And a ghost will be a nice relief to come home to after dealing with a classroom of six year olds."

"My kids are great, don't mock them. Ride to the library?"

"Sure, dude."

* * *

`HEIR FOUND - TRAGEDY`

`1922, September 24th. A search for the missing heir to the Button Brewery fortune has ended in tragedy. Franklin Button, son of Elias Button, was found hung from the neck in an old tenement building on--`

`-- Police have ruled it as suicide.`

* * *

Gideon brought out the clay jar he'd gotten at the thrift store, opened a window, and turned off his fire alarm. He carefully placed the turkey sandwich and shot glass of beer inside the jar and dropped the match inside.

"Okay!" he said. "I'm offering you food to strengthen you!" He wafted the smoke to the window.

Once the fire had burned down down and his apartment hadn't with it, he got out the ouija board, also found at the thrift store, and lay on his stomach in front of it.

"Spirit!" said Gideon. "Can you hear me?"

His fingers trembled over the pointer, which slowly moved to _YES_. Gideon's entire body shivered.

"My name is Gideon," he said. "Is yours Franklin?"

_YES._

"I saw what happened to you in the paper," said Gideon. "That's an awful way to go. I'm so sorry you felt like you had to commit suicide."

_NO_

"You mean it was a good way to go?" said Gideon, confused.

_NO_

"I don't understand--" 

_M-U-R-D-E-R_

"Oh," said Gideon in a very small voice.

The room got a lot darker. 

Gideon started getting up. A hand rested on his wrist. The hand was white. Not skin-white, but snow-white. Ash-white.

He looked up into the face of an older man. Older in age, older in time, period.

"That was a very nice sandwich, young man, thank you," said Franklin Button.

"I can't avenge people," Gideon blurted out, "I have to maintain a good public image as a teacher!" 

Franklin laughed and helped Gideon up. It felt like being touched by old paper. It was... interesting. 

"No luck on that front - my father's secretary went and drank himself into the river right after hanging me," said Franklin. "I have no way of getting out of this place with him gone. Maybe he's out there on the river, for me to fight, but I've no idea how to get there."

Gideon sat looking up at Franklin. He had been a thin man, with the beginnings of crows' feet on his eyes. And laugh lines. 

"Why?" said Gideon.

"My father was an elderly man who was very fond of his hardworking secretary. He called him a second son. And so, he was put in the will as one. Have you ever noticed that murders seem to occur right after a will's made?"

"Um."

"In stories, anyway. I quite liked stories. I like the ones you've brought, on that little device of yours. I can go into it and explore at my leisure. Maybe I can touch an actual book now." Franklin stretched his renewed fingers. The sandwich had done the trick. Franklin was now almost completely solid. Gideon thanked that little burst of inspiration. 

"I can burn more food for you. And you can go through the rest of my library."

"I'd like that," said Franklin.

* * *

They fell into a pattern after that. Come home from work, feed the ghost. Listen to Franklin's stories, lamenting a life full of missed chances. He'd never gone to war ("My health took a terrible turn at just the wrong time"), he'd never married ("for a variety of very good reasons"), and he'd never become a man of business ("My father had always insisted I should just wait in the wings for the brewery. Alas, that didn't particularly work out, did it. He always did shelter me too much.") But he told it all with a smile on his face. 

"It hadn't been a _bad_ life. Just not a grand one." 

So Gideon decided to give him chances. 

He carefully chipped off a piece of the apartment building's original foundation and took it with him. Franklin couldn't properly manifest that far away from his place of demise, but he was there enough to matter.

They went on rollercoasters (and the scream of the woman who saw Franklin's shade superimposed on her in the ride photo made Gideon scream too in surprise), they went to a haunted mansion once Halloween season began (Franklin made a friend), and they even went to a fine restaurant until Gideon was booted out for roasting bits of his food over the table tealight.

He still insisted on cleaning Gideon's apartment. ("I couldn't abide messes in life. They said I was like an old hen, always tidying. I would have made a fine wife, I suppose.")

They'd had a conversation about women's rights after that. ("Amazing! Women voting? Leaving dirty dishes in the sink? What will they think of next?")

One night, as Franklin washed dishes and Gideon texted with Clarine, Clarine had a brilliant idea for Gideon to try out a dating app on his phone. 

"You spend so much time cooped up in your apartment these days! And when you leave, it's alone! You didn't even take me to the theme park with you. You need to get out with people!"

Gideon, in lieu of explaining why his apartment was perfectly comfortable, downloaded the app.

He was pondering why the nearest match's pictures all cut off at the neck when Franklin wandered back into the living room.

"What's this then?" he asked, peering over Gideon's shoulder, still white and colourless as ash.

"I'm trying to find a boyfriend," muttered Gideon.

"Can they provide something better than your friend Clarine?" said Franklin. "She seems like a nice girl."

"No, for like… kissing and stuff."

Franklin went very still.

"Oh. Uh. It's different these days," began Gideon. "Don't be freaked out at me. Please."

"I'm… not 'freaked out'," said Franklin slowly. 

"You promise?"

"Why do you need these men in your device?" said Franklin.

"Well, they're interested," said Gideon. "I mean, not in me, exactly, but in the potential of me? It's just a program. It's for convenience."

"I'm convenient," said Franklin. 

A very, very long pause.

"What?" said Gideon.

"I'm right here," said Franklin. "Not in a device." 

Gideon swiped 'no' on his match and turned off the phone.

"You might pass on to the other side. You know, move on," said Gideon.

"Yes, but I'd like to live a little before I do find peace," said Franklin. "And I'm far too dead to be nervous. You've shown me more of the world than I ever experienced in life and this is one thing I have always, truly, regretted never taking the chance on."

Gideon leaned up to kiss Franklin. He was there and not there. A man and a wisp of air and time all at once. Gideon kissed him a second time.

Go where the spirit takes you, as they say.


End file.
